November 25, 2009

Daily Chores (FAIL)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Posted by Ryan , , No comments
My experiment in daily chores failed - miserably. Some of the things on my list NEVER got done. I never cleaned the sink, I never cleaned the bathtub or bathroom sink. I never mopped or washed clothes (do towels count?). I guess this plan just doesn't work for me. New plan: this month I will attempt to do the same tasks, but on the weekends. I know the theory is to do a little every day, but I just can't do that. And then on Sat/Sun when I do have a little time, I only think about the 1 "little" think I'm supposed to do. I'm not saying this will work either, but it's worth a try. During the week I will try to mitgate the clutter problem by putting things away (where is away though?) and maybe keeping up with the dishes. When we eventually get a dishwasher installed, I might just do a little dance of excitement in the kitchen during the first load of dishes.

Things I did to this week:
I did finish the installation of the new porch light. It was only about 90 minutes more of work, and probably 20 min of fruitless wrangling before I caved in and got the ladder from the garage to make the final connection of the mounting plate to the ceiling bracket. 17" pendant lights are kind of heavy and my one arm can not hold it above chest height for very long.

I cleaned off one bookshelf in the living room. The two bookshelves flanking the fireplace have been a dumping ground of papers and magazines and action figures and cabinet hardware for the last two years. I took every off, organized some magazines in cardboard holders. I figured if I waited until I got around to covering the magazine holders in nice paper or fabric it would never get done. They don't look bad the way the are, although the big dissapointment is the depth of the shelves doesn't allow me to put the magazines behind the doors - so they're on the top shelf right now. I plan on having the other side done before christmas and maybe I'll even get the doors back on! Lars, I expect you to be impressed when you see them 'cause your dissapointment was a motivating factor.

I went to Miller's Hardware and spent 22 cents to buy a screw. Somehow I lost one when I was mounting the drapes in the dining room so for over a year three windows have had drapery panels, one was blank. Except for the sad brackets (one with only 1 screw).

November 20, 2009

Garlic planting

Friday, November 20, 2009 Posted by Ryan , , , , No comments
This spring when we were shopping for annual vegetable seeds I grabbed a head of garlic that was by the register. I thought I'd give it a go. Apparently around here garlic really needs to be planted in the fall (like right now) to get a head start on the growing season. That head of garlic I grabbed in the spring was planted, but wasn't doing very well when it was accidentally tilled this summer. After my experiment with this Sunset vegetable garden plan (it looked like a good idea) we're going back to raised beds in the garden. In fact they are the same raised beds I built 4 years ago. I went back to the old house and disasembled them this summer. They look so big in this backyard. I'll probably need to make new ones in a few years as these are already starting to rot out (they were made from 20+ year-old fence panels). This year we're also going to start the garlic in the fall. I don't know the exact varieties. The bulbs are purple, there are two different kinds, and they are a hardneck variety. That means we'll get the garlic scapes in the spring and I can make more of that pesto. Remember, I'm still excited that anything will grow for me.

UPDATE: I started this post a month ago, planning on getting some pictures when I planted the garlic. Well it's in, no pictures, and I still haven't found mulch for the bed which means they've probably already frozen and died. We've had several severe freezes and a few light snows. It might snow more this weekend too.

I started installing the new porch light but now it's been 2 weeks and I'm not done yet. Of course that means we've gone 2 weeks with NO porch light - and i'm one of those people who leave them on all night. For me, dark houses make an unfriendly neighborhood and that can lead to an unsafe neighborhood. I guess it's time to stop procrastinating and take that trip through the knee wall in the attic (I have to install a new junction box in the porch ceiling). I took some pictures of the porch project so maybe I'll finish and get those up this weekend.